


Crossing lines

by marlowe78



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s04e09 Miller's Crossing, Gen, Ruthless Sheppard, outside pov, quite a bit dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 12:49:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16086452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marlowe78/pseuds/marlowe78
Summary: How can a Wraith under heavy guards suddenly jump at Henry Wallace and nobody say a thing?This is how.Tag to "Miller's Crossing".





	Crossing lines

**Author's Note:**

> Holy shit, I found this on my drive - don't know why I never posted it, I really like it. So - here's some background to the episode I love with all my heart because it shows that even laid-back Zoomies can be ruthless to the extreme. And I LIKE it when my heroes are a bit smudged.

There are things that are too weird to even talk about. They are certainly too… special to make it into a report. 

Mitch was sure that this report would read like a really bad comedy. Or like the written proof of the unbelievable ineptitude of him and his men. Still, he’ll put his name under the report, because there were some things you just didn’t do.

Of course, only this morning he’d have said that one of these things would be to stand by and watch a Wraith feed on a human. Watch and do absolutely nothing. This morning, he’d have said it would have been the very, very last thing Colonel Sheppard would do.

And yet, it was exactly what was happening. And strangely enough, Mitch didn’t even feel particularly bad about it. 

He’d come to the Pegasus Galaxy with the first wave of scientists, back when everyone was excited and happy and just plain curious. He’d been one of Colonel Sumner’s men, still Corporal back then. He’d gone to the Marines because it’s what every man – and his cousin Susan – in his family did. Mitch never really thought he’d stick with it, though. But for some up to now inexplicable reason, he’d been picked for the SGC and come on… who’d get out when there were spacebattles and aliens! He’d always been a bit of a space-geek, and when the call to Pegasus had come, he’d jumped up and said ‘Here, pick me!’.

Not literally, of course. 

He was nearly six feet nine, so he’d merely stood up from his chair. 

Even though it hadn’t taken more than a day – actually, less than one – until the proper chain of command had been shaken, stirred and finally landed in the hands of a laid-back zoomy, Mitch hadn’t regretted his decision for even a second.

He’d lost friends to firefights, the Genii and the Wraith. He’d stood honor-guard for comrades he’d considered brothers or sisters too often to keep counting. He’d been under the command of a fucking Air Force Major, then an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel _and_ an Air Force Major, had been sent to die – survived, but the order had been given under the assumption that he and his men wouldn’t make it – and yet… no regrets.

He actually liked Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard. No matter where he’d earned his command – he _had_ earned it. And while carrying friends to their graves was always hard, he’d made so many that it outweighed his losses. Mitch had learned so damn much about the Military in other countries; had learned German from his pal Schmitz – Shmitty, they all called him – and a bit of Russian from Dmitry. He’d been on dates with a woman who couldn’t even tie her shoes properly, yet could run mathematical circles around everyone but Doc McKay and Zelenka. How would he have even met someone as amazing as Miko on Earth? 

Never, that’s how. 

So underneath it all, he didn’t regret a second of his life in Pegasus. And because the term ‘don’t leave men behind’ actually meant something to his CO, he had really no problems with lying in an official report. 

His dad would be pissed. Mitch didn’t give a fuck.

So here he was, watching that Wallace-guy swallow his fear while Sheppard’s pet-Wraith stared at the Colonel with trepidation. He stepped aside, like the Colonel had asked him to. He hadn’t ordered Mitch, which would have been easier and maybe kinder and wouldn’t require him to lie. But Sheppard had come to him and told him what was going to happen. 

Sheppard had stood there, with that look of determination that usually didn’t bode well for the people on the opposite side of him, then forced himself to relax. 

_“Sergeant Peterson. I’m going to talk to Mr Wallace now. I might come back to the lab in an hour or so… show him around some.”_

_“Sir?”_ That was always a good way to show you don’t understand a fucking thing your COs are saying. Security-clearance for the guy who had for all intents and purposes killed Doc McKay’s sister seemed a very strange thing to arrange.

_“Yeah. He might find the urge to… look at the data. You know. Correct things.”_

This time, Mitch had just raised an eyebrow. Seriously? Correcting McKay’s work? 

_“Things that McKay can’t fix. That I won’t allow him to fix.”_

Oh. Oooh!  
Yeah, he hadn’t even needed the tale-telling glance at the starving Wraith. 

_“You might … you know, take a break then. I can arrange for your lunch-break to fall in that timeframe. If you’re uncomfortable.”_

_“With Mr Wallace visiting the lab, sir? Why would I be uncomfortable with a man trying to fix his mistakes?”_

Sheppard had stared at him but Mitch hadn’t blinked. He’d tried to convey his meaning without speaking out loud – _yes, I know what you’re planning, and no, I don’t think there’s something wrong with that._ Apparently, it had worked. Because here he was, watching the Wraith gasp in surprise when Mitch stepped back and lowered his gun. Watching it sniff the air when Wallace took a step closer. 

“My name is Henry Wallace,” the guy said. “I… I’m here to fix a mistake I made. I… I have already lost what I wanted to save, but I haven’t yet paid for my sins.”

“Sheppard?” the Wraith asked, still not sure it could believe what was before its eyes. Before this day, Mitch would’ve denied the rumors about ‘Sheppard’s Wraith’, about how there was a bond between them that was in equal measures fascinating and revolting.

He wouldn’t deny it anymore. But of course, since this day would be erased from records, he would never speak of it, either. 

The Colonel didn't answer, just nodded at the Wraith. Which then hissed and held out its hand towards Wallace and then struck, quick as a snake. It drank him empty, like others had done to Mitch’s friends and comrades. Yet he couldn’t avert his eyes, and couldn’t help thinking that this was right. Terrifyingly right.

Good Lord, what was that Galaxy doing to his sense of right and wrong?

He took a look at the Colonel, who was holding Wallace’s hand in a mockingly intimate fashion. Wallace had a tight grip on it, clearly in horrible pain as he screamed. But Sheppard didn’t let go, didn’t look away. He leaned down, right before the Wraith finished… uh, eating – and whispered something in Wallace’s ears. Whatever it was, it made Wallace smile. Seconds later he was dead. 

“Peterson here. We have an emergency in the lab,” he spoke into his comm then. “Need a medical team here asap.”

It didn’t take longer than a minute for the guy in front of the door – Corporal Curri, a lanky guy who looked sick to the bones when he spotted the dried corpse – to rush in. Good man, probably, but way too gullible. If Lieutenant Fuller had been outside when Sheppard had brought Wallace in, it wouldn’t have gone so smoothly.

They’d also have problems to lie so convincingly at the sitrep after the fact. 

But it didn’t really surprise him that it was Curri instead of Fuller. Quick thinking and even quicker acting from the Colonel had saved Atlantis more than once, had supposedly ended with Sheppard, McKay, Weir and even Beckett kicking a whole lot of Replicator-ass. 

‘Never underestimate a desperate man’, he thought just when the door slid open, revealing a pale Doc McKay. 

He was glad it wasn’t him who had to tell McKay what had happened – or not really happened, actually. Mitch didn’t think he’d be able to pull it off convincingly enough for the other Marines in the room to believe. 

'Never underestimate the length a good man will go to to correct a mistake," he thought, watching the remains of Mr Wallace be carried out on a stretcher.


End file.
